it. While they waited for further orders from Achilles, the Liberator stood off at a safe distance from the Q-bomb, matching its trajectory.
Christ, John Metternes snapped, releasing his restraints. I need a drink. Another shower, and a bloody drink.
Mars dust and loose bits of ice were churning on the floor, whipping up to collide with the shining face of the Eye. Bisesa felt fear and exhilaration. Not again. Not again!
Myra ran clumsily to her mother, and grabbed her. Mum!
Its all right, Myra
Her voice was drowned out in her own ears by a rising tone, a sweep up the frequency scale into inaudibility, loud enough to be painful.
Yuri studied a softscreen sewn into his sleeve. That signal was a frequency chirplike a test
Ellie was laughing. It worked. The Eye is responding. By Sols light! I don't think I ever believed it. And I certainly didnt think it would work as soon as this woman walked into the Pit.
Alexei grinned fiercely, Believe it, baby!
Its changing, said Yuri, looking up.
The Eyes smooth reflective sheen now oscillated like the surface of a pool of mercury, waves and ripples chasing across its surface.
Then the surface collapsed, as if deflating. Bisesa found herself looking up into a funnel, walled with a silvery gold. The funnel seemed to be directly before her facebut she guessed that if she were to walk around the chamber, or climb above and below the Eye, she would see the same funnel shape, the walls of light drawing in toward its center.
She had seen this before, in the Temple of Marduk. This was not a funnel, no simple three-dimensional object, but a flaw in her reality.
Her suit said, I apologize for any inconvenience. However
The suits voice cut out with a pop, to be replaced by silence. Suddenly her limbs turned flaccid and heavy. The suits systems had failed, even the servomotors.
The air was full of sparks now, all rushing toward the core of the imploded Eye.
Wrestling with her own suit, Myra pressed her helmet against Bisesas, and Bisesa heard her muffled cries. Mum, no! Youre not running out on me again!
Bisesa clung to her. Love, its all right, whatever happens... But there was a kind of wind, dragging at her. She staggered, their helmets lost contact, and she let go of Myra.
The storm of light grew to a blizzard. Bisesa looked up at the Eye. The light was streaming into its heart. In these final moments the Eye changed again. The funnel shape opened out into a straight-walled shaft that receded to infinitybut it was a shaft that defied perspective, for its walls did not diminish with distance, but stayed the same apparent size.
And the light washed down over her, filling her, searing away even her sense of self.
There was only one Eye, though it had many projections into space-time. And it had many functions.
One of those was to serve as a gate.
The gate opened. The gate closed. In a moment of time too short to be measured, space opened and turned on itself.
With a snap, it was over. The chamber was dark. The Eye was whole again, sleek and reflective in its ancient cage.
Bisesa was gone. Myra found herself on the floor, weighed down by a powerless suit. She yelled into the silence of her helmet. Mum. Mum!
There was a click, and a soft hum. A female voice said levelly, Myra. Dont be alarmed. I am speaking to you through your ident tattoo.
Whats happened?
Help is on its way. I have spoken to Paula on the surface. You two have the only ident tattoo. You must reassure the others.
Who are you? I suppose I am the leader of what your mother called this faction. I know your voice. From years agothe sunstorm My name is Athena.
PART 2 JOURNEYS 25: INTERLUDE: A SIGNAL FROM EARTH
2053
In this system of a triple star, the world orbited far from the central fire. Rocky islands protruded from a glistening icescape, black dots in an ocean of white. And on one of those islands lay a network of wires and antennae, glimmering with frost. It was a listening post.
A radio pulse washed across the island, much attenuated by distance, like a ripple spreading across a pond. The listening post stirred, motivated by automatic responses; the signal was recorded, broken down, analyzed.
The signal had structure, a nested hierarchy of indices, pointers, and links. But one section of the data was different. Like the computer viruses from which it was remotely descended, it had self-organizing capabilities. The data sorted itself